


A very transparent sort of secret

by SrebrnaFH



Series: Srebrna's Sherlock Oneshots [16]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ageing, Deductions, Friends to Lovers, Insecure John, M/M, Secrets, Very insecure John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 12:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17919002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SrebrnaFH/pseuds/SrebrnaFH
Summary: John is hiding something and Sherlock feels the urge to find out





	A very transparent sort of secret

**Author's Note:**

> Started as a fluffy two-pager and ended up as... Well. This.

John looked different these days. There was something… Something about his hair? No. His tan? No, fading slightly due to winter. His clothes… No, not clothes.

It was something he was obviously keeping away from Sherlock. Something he wanted to remain secret. Ha. Not in  _this_  house, no sir.

He knew perfectly well John had spoken about the whatever-it-was with Mrs Hudson, as the two had been discussing something on the stairs when he came in and broke the conversation off as soon as they saw him.

It was  _aggravating_.

Every time he came home and John was already in, there was a bit of a shuffle from the side of his blogger. Something was being … hidden? Changed?

…dressed?

Was John sitting semi-naked in their flat when Sherlock was out?

But why would he discuss this with Mrs Hudson? Ah… Their intrepid landlady probably managed to surprise him one day and was now blackmailing him into something by her knowledge.

But no, it didn’t fit. Not really.

He looked up from where he had been checking the slides with various puddle water samples and stared at John, who was now squinting at his screen with annoyance and typing even slower than ever.

Typing slower than  _ever_  before.

John was ill. There was something wrong with his shoulder. He was typing slow and maybe… Ah, maybe he was putting something on the joint? There were diclofenac creams and other things one could apply on the skin - and he probably used the gel packs they had stashed in the freezer for hot/cold compresses.

But why would he worry about it and hide the fact?

Human tendency to avoid worrying  _others_ , most probably. He didn’t want Sherlock to know, because…

Ah, obvious. He told Mrs Hudson, but not Sherlock, for the simple reason that she was not directly dependent on John’s manual skills, for example in hand-to-hand combat. So anything that affected John’s efficiency would also affect Sherlock.

But… But he was sure that now, since he knew it, he could work around it. Actually  _knowing_  was in this case the key element. As long as John kept him informed, Sherlock would find a way.

He scowled at the thought that John wanted to hide such an important thing from him. 

“You can use them in my presence, you know,” he said finally, “I’m not going to be… disturbed, or whatever you think it may be.”

John’s eyes shot up to peer at him incredulously.

“I thought…” he swallowed.

“You though wrong.”

“But, I’m not sure…”

“Well, I am. Now please do shut up and just… proceed. I won’t have you sitting there in discomfort, making unhappy noises,” (John hadn’t been making any noises, but the strained expression on his face spoke volumes) “so please, do it.”

“I was afraid you would object,” John sighed, and there was something so small and actually  _pained_  in that sound that Sherlock looked up at him again. John’s shoulders were slumped and he was staring ahead, blinking as if…

…blinking away some tears.

“Why would I object? We all fall victims of our age at some point. Some gain weight, which you’ve obviously avoided doing, some pick up unsavoury habits, which you have either never done or given up and some just…”

“Some just fail to work as they used to,” John concluded quietly, looking down at his hands. “I thought… That may be the moment that… You may want to find…” he swallowed and Sherlock tracked the way his Adam’s apple moved under the tanned, soft skin. “Someone younger to assist you. Now. I mean, as I’m not…”

_What?_

“…I’ll try not to be a burden, after all, I can still participate in the rent costs, even if I can’t tag along on the scenes anymore, but I hope…”

_Wait wait wait wait what._

“John, what are you talking about? No, I mean, just shut up and… I’d never go looking for someone else, why would I? Every kind of…”

“Infirmity,” John supplied with a grimace.

“If you insist. I wanted to use ‘sign of age’, but…” he peered closer at his blogger - best friend - flatmate and noticed the slight signs of tension - hands clasped against shaking, tense skin around the eyes, lips drawn into a thin line. John was in pain right now. Right here and now.

John sighed and reached into his messenger bag.

“Promise you won’t laugh,” he requested weakly. “It’s… I…”

He shrugged finally and drew out a small, plastic case.

_Oh?_

The pair of glasses nestled inside was wide-framed, with rather big lenses and… not much else special about them. But John was looking at them in such a forlorn way that Sherlock actually became worried.

“I feel so old,” his friend whispered softly. “I always thought… My parents never needed glasses, not until they turned seventy and for me, it was… the ultimate sign of ageing. I mean, Sherlock,” he sniffed quietly. “Will you be happy to show yourself outside with an old man?”

And the glasses went on. Pushed up with a trembling hand. Long, plastic arms reaching behind John’s ears. Half-defiant, half-beaten look on John’s face.

“John, I…”

“It’s just for reading! And laptop, and this kind of stuff. I can shoot as well as ever, but I can’t…” John’s shoulders slumped down again and he rubbed - probably unconsciously - at his wound. Sherlock’s breath caught as he watched his friend rock forward slightly and take off the glasses to rub at his eyes.

John was crying.

John was sitting at his beloved laptop, surrounded by the papers - the papers he hadn’t been reading in Sherlock’s presence for  _days_  - and his books and his notes, the books he hadn’t opened in days and the notes he hadn’t been taking, because he had been  _ashamed_  of needing the glasses to read and write. And now he was crying, because he thought Sherlock would not wish to associate himself with  _an old man_.

“What on earth did make you think you look  _old_?” he asked finally, standing up from the table and making his way over to his friend, who was now looking at the pair of spectacles in a definitely dejected fashion.

“The girl at the frames counter,” John shrugged shakily. “She said these will make me look ‘distinguished’. And that they don’t age me at all. I think ‘looking quite well for my years’ was also mentioned.”

Sherlock carefully smothered the next thing he was aching to say, because he had no idea who the girl was and it was not relevant at the moment. The relevant thing was, right now, to reassure and comfort John, because the other option was in fact to go out there, find that girl and crush her soul in very much the same fashion as she apparently had done to John in just three stupid sentences. Sherlock was sure he could have dealt with her in  _two_.

“These,” he said, poking the glasses, “Don’t make you look old. They don’t make you look young. They just make you look like a man in glasses. Which is not that uncommon. Presbyopia is one of the most prevalent causes for using eyeglasses among people over forty…” he broke off as John turned his face away and inhaled quickly.

_Ah._

That was the real point. Over forty. John had turned forty a few weeks before - he had informed Sherlock and Mrs Hudson quietly that he didn’t require anything, least of all a party or a cake, and that he didn’t wish any fuss. They had spent it in an unusually peaceful manner, and John had gone upstairs early, ignoring even the fact that there was one of these action movies he liked on the telly.

Now he knew that the peaceful part was more in the “subdued” category.

“You’re worried that you are getting too old for this,” he concluded suddenly. “You are worried you’re getting to old for women to notice you as a potential partner. You are worried that one day…”

“ _You_ will notice that you have an old, scarred, broken man following you to the crime scenes and you’ll decide you don’t need me there anymore.”

“John, I will  _always_  need you there,” he said sincerely, dropping into his chair and leaning forward to pick the glasses up. “You are being as silly as the woman who sold you these. You don’t look old, or distinguished, or anything equally stupid. You look like you. In glasses,” he licked his suddenly dry lips and shook his head minutely. “I bet if you were a teacher, you’d have half of your students in love with you - and half of them jealous of your looks.”

“Don’t even say such things,” John stood up nervously and strode into the kitchen. “I’m too old to… to consider…”

“You’re not too old to have someone interested in you,” he supplied - entirely truthfully for once.

“Everyone my age seems to be paired off,” the soldier scoffed. “Everyone I meet is… is too young to get saddled with…  _me.”_

“Jeannette seemed interested,” he pointed out, standing in the entrance to their tiny kitchen, watching John looking at a bottle of scotch.

“Jeannette is a year younger then you,” John sounded bitter. “And that’s way too young.  _Your_  age is too young for…”

Sherlock found himself pulled towards the little sliver of skin that showed between John’s high collar and his short, freshly trimmed hair.

_New haircut. In an attempt to feel less unkempt. Shaves more often, new razors, new shaving cream. No dates. Not even a mention of a potential date. Nothing on crime scenes. No texts… Ah. Glasses. He can’t text or read them without and he was hiding them from me, in order to…_

_To not let **me** know he is getting older. Ah._

He took a step. Another. And another. His hand slid slowly to John’s palm, where it was flat and tense against their worn tabletop. He eased his fingers slowly between the shorter digits of a trained surgeon.

“Sh…”

“You are fine just as you are, John,” he said firmly. “You are fine with your glasses, with your sometimes dodgy leg, with your shoulder that responds to weather changes and with your temperament that blows up under slightest pressure. I like you just the way you are.”

“Thank you, Sherlock,” John whispered, barely audible over the hum from the street. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Mmhm,” he reached around John and removed the bottle of amber liquid from the working area and replaced it with two mugs. “How about we make some tea? And…”

His free hand was caught in John’s and delicately pressed into the worn surface. He froze, just for an eye blink.

Then John’s fingers slowly straightened, letting him go in a mute offer of freedom.

He curled his own around the shorter ones.

“You…” John inhaled shallowly.

“Yes.”

“But I…?”

“Not true.”

“You’re so…”

“I know. Stop it.”

“So sorry. do you want me…?”

“I want  _you_ ,” Sherlock whispered into the warm nape of John’s neck. “Glasses on or glasses off, I want you, John Watson.”

Something shook the soldier all over and Sherlock felt the shorter man  _melting_  against his chest with a sigh of relief.

“Now, let’s make that tea,” Sherlock suggested and reached towards the kettle. “And then we can stretch on the sofa and I’ll enumerate all the ways in which these glasses make you look completely devastating.”

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: It was inspired by [THIS PHOTO](https://66.media.tumblr.com/68cf1342222667acbc51ea5023bb1b16/tumblr_inline_pnhpj2N9K31szgjhr_540.jpg)
> 
> I am taking a writing course and one of the tasks is to ask my readers to describe my writing style in 3 adjectives. I'd be grateful if you could provide this kind of feedback :)  
> (if you provided it already somewhere else - THANK YOU! :))
> 
>  
> 
> [You can find me on tumblr.](https://srebrnafh.tumblr.com/)  
> [Or visit my blog.](https://fanfik.wordpress.com/)


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